The Calm
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: Puck likes it when Rachel brings their newborn daughter into the bedroom to nurse her at night.


Puck isn't a light sleeper. It isn't like he wakes up at every sound. But ever since his daughter came home he started to be able to wake up every single time she started to cry. He doesn't spring up in bed when she cries or anything like he's on a spring mechanism. But he slowly starts to wake up. And usually he reaches over and shakes his fiancé to let her know that the baby is crying. Because she's a little bit of a heavier sleeper than him and while he doesn't mind getting up and getting the baby she likes to get up when Lena started to cry.

So, when he hears Lena crying over the baby monitor it gets through his sleepy mind rather quickly. So he rolls over, groans a little bit, buries his face against the pillow. Lena has gotten to the point where she was on a schedule and her body knows the schedule. She would wake up every time it was time for her to eat like clock worth and he has to admit that it makes it simpler. They could just feed her when she woke up. Or really Rachel fed her. Sometimes he would just get up and get the baby for her.

Once he's woken up enough to actually sit up he looks over to Rachel's side of the bed but realizes that she wasn't there anymore. Somehow, without him realizing it, she had climbed out of bed already. And that's when he hears the soft cooing of his wife over the baby monitor, talking nonsense words to her. She does that constantly, coos at her and speaks in nonsense words. It's sort of adorable. But, of course, Rachel is often adorable when it comes to their daughter.

Rachel comes back into the room a few moments later. Her eyelids are still heavy and he can tell she's tired but she's a trooper. She gets up and does what she has to do for their baby every single time. She never complains, never hesitates. She didn't hesitate from day one. It was like the maternal instinct was just born into her.

She just sits down on the bed and reaches up and starts to unbutton the shirt of her pajamas. She had taken to wearing button-up shirts because she was breastfeeding and it made it easier for her. She could just unbutton a few buttons and be almost ready. If she wore anything else she would have to strip the whole top off.

The first few times that she brought the baby in to feed her Puck had asked if she wanted him to hold Lena. But Rachel refused, insisted that she was perfectly fine. He knew it wasn't anything personal. It was just her way of making sure that she could handle the baby on her own when he wasn't around to help. And she didn't want to shuffle the baby back and forth between them and wake her up more.

Balancing their daughter in one arm and unbuttoned some of the buttons of her pajamas shirt. Ever since she had Lena her breasts were bigger and while the size of her breasts had never been an issue for him he definitely noticed how much bigger they had gotten due to her breastfeeding their baby.

When Lena first came home, when she was first born, it was quite difficult to get used to breastfeeding. Sometimes Lena didn't seem to know how to go about things and Rachel would get frustrated. The first couple of times Rachel got so discouraged and so frustrated with her inability to get things right that she started to cry. And he felt so bad for her that he wished he could do something to help her but he really couldn't. All he could do was sit there and stroke her hair, try to calm her down, reassure her that she hadn't done anything wrong, that things would get easier.

It had gotten so much easier for Rachel though and this time it was pretty instantaneous. Lena's tiny little mouth latched onto Rachel's nipple and it was almost the very second his daughter's mouth latched onto Rachel's nipple the soft sounds of the baby suckling started to fill the otherwise quiet room.

There's something insanely comforting, something amazing about that sound. He can't explain it and wouldn't be able to even if Rachel begged him. It's sort of like realizing all over again that she's his baby, that he has a family, that he has a wife and a beautiful little girl. And for a long time he had thought that he would never have that, that he wasn't meant for a family. But now he has one. And this time he has a daughter that he was going to be able to raise, to watch grow up. It was something quite a wonderful feeling.

Like he does so frequently when Rachel brings the baby into the room she reaches over and runs his index finger up and down Lena's cheek. Her jaw and her cheeks flex and move as she swallows. Her cheeks are rather round and when his mother first saw her she went on and on about how Lena looked a lot like Puck himself when he was a baby, that she had the same rosy, round cheeks and the same nose. But she has Rachel's dark, dark eyes that look like they can see through a person and see deep down inside of you.

Rachel looks down at Puck stroking their daughter's cheek and for a moment her eyes just stay there. But then she looks up at him and smiles, a sleepy yet content smile. And while he has always loved her smile seeing her smile because of their daughter, because of them sitting there like a family. It makes his heart swell so much that it almost hurts but it's a good kind of pain. It makes him feel completely and totally at ease, makes him feel happy.

Once he takes his hand away from her he leans against the headboard and just watches. He watches Rachel finish feeding the baby, watches her lift the baby up to her shoulder and pat her tiny little back until she lets out this tiny little burp. And it's not until Rachel is done that he takes his daughter out of her arms and cradles Lena to his chest.

He stands up as Rachel is buttoning her pajama shirt back up. He makes his to the nursery, leans down and presses a kiss to his daughter's smooth forehead, breathes in the clean smell of her. And as he lowers her back into her crib and her tiny little eyes are closed he thinks about all the stupid shit he did before, how many times he fucked up in his life. But really? They don't matter anymore.

Because without them he might not be where he is, with a woman he loves and a beautiful little girl he can call his own.

And that he wouldn't give up for anything in the world.


End file.
